GOD WANTS ME TO FORGIVE THEM?!?

Okay, this title is not original - it is from one of my kids' VeggieTales movies. But it is a predominant theme in my weekend/week so far.
At church this weekend, there was a guest speaker - turns out, it was someone who my family has known and loved for years. Having been on vacation last week, I had forgotten that he would be speaking and was pleasantly surprised when we showed up on Sunday morning and saw him sitting in the front of the church. I knew we were in for a great message ...yet, as the teaching progressed, I wasn't so sure. Oh, he was charismatic, hilarious, right on scripturally...everything you would want in a sermon and more....but as he spoke, I found I had some serious baggage that still needed tending to. You know how sometimes God chooses to remind us of things that we may not be so willing to deal with? Well, that was my Sunday.
Don't worry, I won't type out an entire sermon :) but I will say that the main gist of it was on forgiveness and if we are struggling with forgiving a person (or people), it may well be that we are not following what the Word of God says regarding forgiveness. It is so easy to say, "I have forgiven that person", all the while knowing there is a root of bitterness festering deep inside us. It is also easy to blame God that we find it impossible to forgive when we continue to focus on ourselves and how we have been wronged and we just don't understand why God won't make it easier. More often than not, we have not really surrendered to what the scriptures have to say about forgiveness. (and when we are in a state of unforgiveness it is easy to avoid those passages and just focus on those that serve our purposes!)
On Sunday, there were several passages of the Bible covered regarding forgiveness (the Lord's Prayer in Matthew, the attributes of God listed in Exodus 34:6-7, Jonah's attitude toward the Ninevites, etc. ) I would like to share a quick list of things that God asks us to do in dealing with those we feel have wronged us. We, as humans, find it easier to love our friends and hate our enemies, but God asks us to:
* Love our enemies
* Bless those who curse us
* Do good to those who hate us
* Pray for those who spitefully use us and persecute us
Ouch! I think that is enough!
None of the things listed here come naturally - yet, I have found that if we ask the Lord to instill those things in us, He will - and WE will be blessed as a result. I know for me, I often CHOOSE to hang on to my unforgiveness because if I hand it over to God, He may just reconcile a relationship I don't want reconciled (ala Jonah and the Ninevites). But, in that immaturity and selfishness, I am the one who misses out when I cling to resentment.
In the past year, God has blessed me with reconciled relationships that I handed over to Him to do as He pleases. I surrendered and I benefited. Why do I hang on to other seeds of unforgiveness in my life knowing that they only cause ME harm? My lying awake at night does not hurt my offender....it hurts me!
Looking at the list above, God did not say those things in Matthew 5:43-45 just for filler. They are the KEY to forgiveness in the heart of a believer. Surrendering fully to the admonitions in the Bible reap great benefits - they may not come easy to our human nature, but oh, they are so sweet when we think through what they are really saying to do and ask God to do them through us.
Okay, this was NOT supposed to be this long! I know God was really trying to impress this message on my heart when I heard the message on Sunday. Then, I opened my email on Monday morning to find a devotional on the same subject (btw, check out this great site with great devotionals for women: Proverbs 31) As if that was not enough, today when I logged on to our church website to read our "Thru the Word" passages which I had not done for a while, I found the SAME scripture (in Matthew 5) to read TODAY! Obviously, this is a timely message for me as I search my own heart - but I felt compelled to share it since most of us have people or situations in which we struggle with feeling wronged or hurt and don't understand why we can't get past it. I have learned 0nce again, over the past three days, that God's Word is very clear on how to resolve interpersonal relationships and it begins with us aligning our hearts with His and being willing to put others, even our "enemies" above ourselves.